48 BIKDS OF OXTAKIO. 



in the first week in June, found the entire island covered with eggs 

 of gulls and terns. He says : "I don't suppose you could lay down a 

 two-feet rule without each end of it touching a nest. The terns and 

 gulls wei'e here bi'eeding side by side. Most of the gulls' nests were 

 in the grass, those of the tern in the sand. I did not find a gull's 

 nest with more than three eggs, and very few with two ; whereas 

 several hollows had as many as eighteen terns' eggs in them, which 

 had rolled together." 



Mr. Frazer also found the Ring-billed Gulls breeding in Labrador, 

 and he remarked that the number of eggs fUd not exceed four. 



Macoun reports it breeding in all the lakes of anv size in the 

 North-West. 



LARUS ATRICILLA Lixx. 

 20. Laughing Gull. ('jS) 



Adtilf, in summer: — Bill and edges of eyelids, deep carmine; legs and feet, 

 dusky red ; iris, Ijlackish. Hood, deep plumbeous, grayish-black, extending 

 farther on the throat than on the nape. Eyelids, white, posteriorly. Neck all 

 round, rump, tail, broad tips of secondaries and tertials, and whole under parts 

 white, the latter with a rosy tinge which fades after death. Mantle, grayish 

 plumbeous ; outer six primaries, black, their extreme tips white ; their bases for 

 a short distance on the first, and only on the inner web, and for a successively 

 increasing distance on both webs of the others, of the color of the back. 



Hab. — Tropical and warm temperate America, chiefly along the sea coast, 

 f I'om Maine to Brazil. 



Xest, in a tussock of grass, the cavity nicely lined with tine diy grasses. 



Kggs, three to five, bluish white, spotted and blotciied with brown, und)er 

 anil lilac of various shades. 



In the report of the proceedings of the Oi-nitholugical Sub-section 

 of the Canadian Institute for 1890-91, occurs the following : 



"On May 23rd, 1890, a gull was brought to my store. It had 

 been shot on Toronto Island, and, being unlike any of our native 

 species, I had it thoroughly examined, and it proved to be a male 

 Laughing Gull (Lai-us atricilla). This is, I l)elieve, the first record of 

 tills l)ird for Ontario." — Willia.m Cross. 



The Laughing Gull is a southern bird, whose centre of abundance 

 is along tlie shores of the Gulf of IMexico. It is also common in the 

 South Atlantic and (Julf States, and is found breeding as far north 

 as the coast of Nev/ England, but this, so far as I know, is the first 

 record of its occurrence in Ontario. Speaking of this species, Mr. 



